Not upheld: service conduct and customer communication complaint against HSBC Bank UK Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Miss G complained to the FOS about multiple service issues with her HSBC account, including unprofessional chat conduct involving emoji use, intrusive messages on the mobile app, intimidating staff conduct, and failure to inform her of health benefits. The ombudsman found that two complaints (Covid-19 charges and malicious payment) were brought outside the six-month jurisdictional window with no exceptional circumstances. For the remaining complaints, the ombudsman found no evidence of wrongdoing: the emoji was a friendly greeting, the intrusive messages originated from Miss G's device via pre-populated shortcuts, and the intimidation complaint lacked specific dates. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied FCA DISP rules limiting jurisdiction to complaints brought within six months of final response letters, with exceptions only for exceptional circumstances such as incapacity. For the Covid-19 and malicious payment complaints, no exceptional circumstances were evidenced. For the emoji complaint, the ombudsman found the adviser's use of a smiley face emoji was intended to set a friendly tone and could not reasonably have been foreseen as offensive, particularly as the adviser did not know Miss G was reporting misconduct. For the intrusive messages, the ombudsman found on balance of probabilities that Miss G had selected pre-populated message shortcuts. For the intimidation complaint, Miss G failed to provide specific dates despite being asked. The HSBC Health Care app complaint was not considered as no final response letter had been issued.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website